"When embraced,the rod of violence[1] breeds danger & fear:Look at people quarreling. I will tell of how I experienced dismay.Seeing people flounderinglike fish in small puddles,competing with one another — as I saw this, fear came into me.The world was entirely without substance.All the directions were knocked out of line.Wanting a haven for myself,I saw nothing that wasn't laid claim to.Seeing nothing in the endbut competition,I felt discontent.And then I sawan arrow here, so very hard to see, embedded in the heart.Overcome by this arrowyou run in all directions.But simply on pulling it out you don't run, you don't sink.[2]

[Here the trainings are recited.] [3]

Whatever things are tied down in the world,you shouldn't be set on them.Having totally penetratedsensual pleasures,sensual passions,[4] you should train for your own Unbinding.Be truthful, not insolent,not deceptive, ridof divisiveness.Without anger, the sageshould cross over the evil of greed & avarice.He should conquer laziness, weariness, sloth;shouldn't consort with heedlessness,shouldn't stand firm in his pride — the man with his heart set on Unbinding.He shouldn't engage in lying,shouldn't create a sense of allure in form,should fully fathom conceit,and live refraining from impulsiveness;shouldn't delight in what's old, prefer what's new,[5] grieve over decline, get entangled in what's dazzling & bright.[6]

I call greed a 'great flood';hunger, a swift current.Preoccupations are ripples;sensuality, a bog hard to cross over.Not deviating from truth,a sage stands on high ground : a brahman.

Having renounced All,[7] he is said to be at peace;having clearly known, heis an attainer-of-wisdom;knowing the Dhamma, he's independent.Moving rightly through the world, he doesn't envy anyone here.

Burn up what's before,and have nothing for after.If you don't graspat what's in between,[8] you will go about, calm.

For whom, in name & form, in every way,there's no sense of mine,and who doesn't grieveover what is not: he, in the world, isn't defeated, suffers no loss.[9]

To whom there doesn't occur 'This is mine,'for whom 'nothing is others,'feeling no sense of mine-ness,doesn't grieve at the thought 'I have nothing.'

Not harsh,not greedy, not perturbed, everywherein tune: this is the reward — I say when asked — for those who are free from pre- conceptions.

For one unperturbed — who knows —there's no accumulating.Abstaining, unaroused,he everywhere sees security.[10] The sagedoesn't speak of himselfas among those who are higher, equal,or lower.At peace, free of selfishness,he doesn't embrace, doesn't reject,"

the Blessed One said.

Notes1. Nd. I: The rod of violence takes three forms: physical violence (the three forms of bodily misconduct), verbal violence (the four forms of verbal misconduct), and mental violence (the three forms of mental misconduct). See AN 10.176.

2. Nd. I: "One doesn't run" to any of the destinations of rebirth; "one doesn't sink" into any of the four floods of sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance (see SN 45.171 and AN 4.10).

3. This phrase, a kind of stage direction, seems to indicate that this poem had a ritual use, as part of a ceremony for giving the precepts.